The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-05-14
TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN.


The Puritans are the patriarchs of
liberty. They opened q new path for
the human conscience they created
new society. Yet, when England tried
to subdue them and they conquered,
the Republic triumphed, but slavery
remained. Washington could only
emancipate his slaves. Franklin said
that the Virginians could not invoke
the name of God, retaining slavery.
Jay said that all the prayers sent up to
heaven by America, for the preseIva-
ton of liberty while slavery continued,
were mere blasphemies. Mason mourn
ed over the payment his descendants
must make for this great crime of their
fathers. Jefferson traced the line where
the black wave of slavery should be
stayed. Nevertheless, slavery increased
continually.
beg that you will pause moment
| to consider the man who cleansed this
terrible stain which obsured the stars
| of the American banner. I beg that
you will pause moment, for his i'm
immortal name has been invoked for
the perpetuation of slavery. All the
past century has not, the century to
come will not have, figure SO grand,
because as evil disappears, so disap-
pears heroism also.
I have often contemplated and de-
scribed Abraham Lincoln's life. Born
in cabin in Kentucky, Of parents who
could hardly real, born new Moses in
the solitude of the desert where are
forged great and obstinate thoughts,
monotonous like the desert, and, like
the desert, sublime; growing up among
those primeval forests, which with their
fragrance send cloud Of incense, and
with their murmurs cloud of prayers
to heaven boatman at eight years,
on the impetuous current of the Ohio,
and at seventeen, on the vast and tran
gull waters Of the Mississippi; later, a
woodman with axe and arm telling the
immemorial trees, to open way to un-
explored regions for his tribe of wander
ing workers; reading no other book
than the Bible, the book Of great sor-
rows and great hopes, dictated often by
prophets to the sound of letters they
dragged through Nineveh and Babylon;
child of nature, in a word, by one of
those miracles only mprehensible
among a free people, he fought for the
country, was raised by his fellow-cit-
liens to the Congress at Washington,
and by the nation to the Presidency OF
the Republic. And, when the evil
grew more virulent, when those States
were dissolved, when the Shareholders
uttered their war cry and the slaves
their groans of despair, the wood cutter,
the boatman, the son of the great West,
the descendant of Quakers, humblest of
the humble before his conscience, great
est of the great in history, ascends the
Capitol, strong and serene with his con-
science and his thought; before him a
veteran army, hostile Europe behind
him, England favoring the South,
France encouraging reaction in Mexico,
in his hands the riven country; he arms
two million of men, gathers half
million horses, sends his artillery twelve
hundred miles in week, from the
banks of the Potomac to the shores of
the Tennessee, fights more than six
hundred battles, reneWs before Rich
mond the deeds of Alexander and of
Caesar; and, after having emancipated
three million slaves, that nothing might
be wanting, he dies in the moment of
victory like Christ, like Socrates, like
all redeemers,-a the foot of his work.
His work sublime achievement over
which humanity shall literally shed its
tears, and God his benediction. Emilio
Castelar,.